Zion: Western side, Part 1

We drove over to the western side of Zion National Park after doing the Outlook trail.  The first few photos I took (as a passenger) on the drive over there:

Funny roadside attraction:

We had to get back on Interstate 15 to get to the western entrance ... the speed limit on that section is 80 miles per hour!  Considering people often drive over the speed limit, I found that to be pretty darned fast.

The next set of photos are taken along the scenic drive in the Kolob canyon zone of the park:

At the end of the road, there is a trail with a short hike to a lookout.  I found this part of the trail to have an interesting construction method- I guess it allows runoff so that the trail doesn't get washed out, but it would be pretty deadly to blind people or anything on wheels!

Views were beautiful along the trail and at the lookout at the end:

Just a tree along the ridge the trail follows:

Coming up next, another trail in the Kolob Canyon zone ...

Zion: Overlook trail

This trail is at the eastern end of the Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel, we hiked it March 19.  The scenery pretty much speaks for itself:

Here's the overlook ... you can see the switchback road we came up to go through the tunnel:

You can see the eastern approach to the tunnel from the end of the trail:

Here's yet another photo of us driving through the tunnel on our way back down into the Zion valley, after the hike:

... and a few more photos as we drive down into the valley and out of the park.  We're headed to the western portion of the park to do a scenic drive and a couple more short hikes, coming up next ...

Zion: The tunnel and east end of the park

The first thing we did March 19 is drive to the east end of the park.  Here are some photos from the drive as we climb a switchback road out of the Zion valley:

This takes us to the Zion - Mt. Carmel tunnel.  It was built in the 1920's, and is too narrow for a lot of modern vehicles, especially things like campers.  When a larger vehicle has to cross it, they stop traffic and make it one way only.  As you see, we were following a camper so we got the one-way experience:

The tunnel has some large windows openings in it:

Coming out the other side:

We gotta lose that camper ... OK, it's going to lose us.

Another smaller tunnel a bit further down the road:

The scenery is just ridiculously beautiful along this road, I was a snapaholic with the camera:

This is another one of those checkerboard mesas, this is the "offical" one the tourists are directed to and we obediently photograph:

 

Heading back through the smaller of the two tunnels (you can tell I like tunnels):

And back at the big tunnel.  We're going to stop here though as there is an overlook hike we are going to do.

Coming up next ... the Canyon Overlook trail.